vossy

hey mate. welcome. post pics!
 
cheers
 
chris
 

Hi all, just wanted to say hello, i hail from England, getting on a bit now, 60 years young, have been modelling since i was a kid, yes we all remember those Airfix kits, but only got back in to the hobby when i was around 40yr, always had an intrest in World War one aircraft, built Airfix again and of course Eduards kits, even got my hands on some Wingnut Wing kits, one days i will get around to building. But also love ships so over the last few years i have been building those, some scratchbuilt in 1/350th scale, they are not works of art but i like them, i have three jobs that take up a lot of my life and find it hard to do anything never mind modelling, stress and metal health problems last year forced me to get back into doing some modelling to relax me after a long days working, and i feel a lot better for it, so i started building the Revell SMS.Emden and that brought me to this shores.

More work on the never ending railings! Also started upper staircase. Not glued yet as need to get the exact same angle as its lower counterpart. Little steps added to the port side cabins as well. 
 








 
Cheers
 
Chris
 

More work on the never ending railings! Also started upper staircase. Not glued yet as need to get the exact same angle as its lower counterpart. Little steps added to the port side cabins as well. 
 








 
Cheers
 
Chris
 

More work on the never ending railings! Also started upper staircase. Not glued yet as need to get the exact same angle as its lower counterpart. Little steps added to the port side cabins as well. 
 








 
Cheers
 
Chris
 

More work on the never ending railings! Also started upper staircase. Not glued yet as need to get the exact same angle as its lower counterpart. Little steps added to the port side cabins as well. 
 








 
Cheers
 
Chris
 

Long time coming I know, but finally a bit of an update! Still finishing off the upper rails, but over the Christmas period I got myself some more willing passengers! Unfortunately these figures only come in packs of 6 and all packs contain the same figurines. So, as you can see from earlier posts I already have a few glued into position on the lower deck horse bay area. So what I will do now is paint the ladies dresses different colors (have already made a bit of a start on this), and I figure if I position them in different parts of the boat they will all look like different people. Some of the worker type people, I intend to cut and manipulate arms etc. and repaint to get a different looking figure. Anyway, here's some pics. Oh, and they are all just lined up here. No-one glued into position as I cant see any ending up here. Just a mass gathering to show the people.
 






Cheers
 
Chris
 

Stunning build David! You should be immensely proud. And boy I wish I worked as fast as you! Have a great trip, looking forward to your next project.
 
Cheers
 
Chris
 

Thanks to Chris, Steve and Lou.
 
And Chris, if you worked as fast as me, your models wouldn't look at beautiful as they do.  I am selective in my picture taking to not expose my more awful "goofs".
 
Regards,
David

Stunning build David! You should be immensely proud. And boy I wish I worked as fast as you! Have a great trip, looking forward to your next project.
 
Cheers
 
Chris
 

TITANIC IS FINALLY FINISHED!
 
I have posted completion pictures in the Gallery of completed kit ships, but I couldn't resist this one that shows the "place of honor" for this model in my office.  Ensures that I will look at it multiple times each day.  😁
 
A few final construction notes.  Some of these you'll see better in the Gallery pictures:
The kit instructions use a plain wood dowel painted brown for the masts.  Couldn't stand that idea so I found a walnut dowel of the same size and used that. I bought a finished walnut base.  The kit includes a MDF base, but I've never figured out how to make one of those look like wood, and I didn't want a black base under this one. You'll see a yellow stripe down the side between the white and black parts of the structure.  This is in the box picture, but not in the instructions.  I did it by using the planking strips, which were perfectly sized, and pre-painting them. Even conserving the supplied rigging thread, I ran out after rigging the Marconi antenna and didn't have enough for the leads down to the ship, so I used some spare from another kit. I wanted to get this done this week as we are headed off for 5-6 weeks for a long Asia trip.  When back and time adjusted, I'm going to do the Dumas Chris Craft Commuter next.  Should be a different challenge to get the finish right.
 
Thanks to all who have followed this build -- for your encouragement and help.
 
Regards,
David

Finished the lifeboats on the starboard side.  I'm pushing to finish the boat, because I go away at the end of this week for 5 weeks and want to have it done before I go.
 
Regards,
David

Before going into mass production on the lifeboat davits, I wanted to make sure I understood how it all comes together, so I did two davits and one lifeboat and mounted them.  Result below.
 
The stern lifeboats (like this one) hang partly out from the deck.  The bow lifeboats mount flush to the edge of the deck.
 
Regards,
David

Long time coming I know, but finally a bit of an update! Still finishing off the upper rails, but over the Christmas period I got myself some more willing passengers! Unfortunately these figures only come in packs of 6 and all packs contain the same figurines. So, as you can see from earlier posts I already have a few glued into position on the lower deck horse bay area. So what I will do now is paint the ladies dresses different colors (have already made a bit of a start on this), and I figure if I position them in different parts of the boat they will all look like different people. Some of the worker type people, I intend to cut and manipulate arms etc. and repaint to get a different looking figure. Anyway, here's some pics. Oh, and they are all just lined up here. No-one glued into position as I cant see any ending up here. Just a mass gathering to show the people.
 






Cheers
 
Chris
 

Long time coming I know, but finally a bit of an update! Still finishing off the upper rails, but over the Christmas period I got myself some more willing passengers! Unfortunately these figures only come in packs of 6 and all packs contain the same figurines. So, as you can see from earlier posts I already have a few glued into position on the lower deck horse bay area. So what I will do now is paint the ladies dresses different colors (have already made a bit of a start on this), and I figure if I position them in different parts of the boat they will all look like different people. Some of the worker type people, I intend to cut and manipulate arms etc. and repaint to get a different looking figure. Anyway, here's some pics. Oh, and they are all just lined up here. No-one glued into position as I cant see any ending up here. Just a mass gathering to show the people.
 






Cheers
 
Chris
 

Long time coming I know, but finally a bit of an update! Still finishing off the upper rails, but over the Christmas period I got myself some more willing passengers! Unfortunately these figures only come in packs of 6 and all packs contain the same figurines. So, as you can see from earlier posts I already have a few glued into position on the lower deck horse bay area. So what I will do now is paint the ladies dresses different colors (have already made a bit of a start on this), and I figure if I position them in different parts of the boat they will all look like different people. Some of the worker type people, I intend to cut and manipulate arms etc. and repaint to get a different looking figure. Anyway, here's some pics. Oh, and they are all just lined up here. No-one glued into position as I cant see any ending up here. Just a mass gathering to show the people.
 






Cheers
 
Chris
 

Essentially black is a primary colour. Brown is a made up colour of 2 or more primary colours and thus will separate out when diluted.
 
Cheers
 
Chris
 

Long time coming I know, but finally a bit of an update! Still finishing off the upper rails, but over the Christmas period I got myself some more willing passengers! Unfortunately these figures only come in packs of 6 and all packs contain the same figurines. So, as you can see from earlier posts I already have a few glued into position on the lower deck horse bay area. So what I will do now is paint the ladies dresses different colors (have already made a bit of a start on this), and I figure if I position them in different parts of the boat they will all look like different people. Some of the worker type people, I intend to cut and manipulate arms etc. and repaint to get a different looking figure. Anyway, here's some pics. Oh, and they are all just lined up here. No-one glued into position as I cant see any ending up here. Just a mass gathering to show the people.
 






Cheers
 
Chris
 

Essentially black is a primary colour. Brown is a made up colour of 2 or more primary colours and thus will separate out when diluted.
 
Cheers
 
Chris
 

Here's one of the lifeboat davits not yet painted and dry-fitted on the deck.  This is a five piece brass assembly with a lot of bending, but it's not too difficult.  I think these will add some real detail.
 
Also a pic of the funnel stays, which are now finished.
 
Next steps are to finish all the davits and paint them, then add eyebolts to the lifeboats, and then mount and rig them.
 
Regards,
David

A lot of kits of such ships as the Golden Hind, Revenge, etc. have similar hull decorations. They tend to use thin printed card, which doesn't look 100% great, but its not too bad either. So perhaps you could print your own and see how that goes?
 
Cheers
 
Chris
 

Now have added the Texas cabin and glued it down after finishing the LED lighting.
No real problems with this phase of the construction.
Now I put the ship aside to work first on the pilot house. With the modifications to the front and side exposures and the subsequent exposure of the interior there will be a fair amount of detailing work to do.
I have a scale stove, one of Syren's ships wheel kits, and a figure that will do for the pilot to add. Also need to figure out the best way to reproduce the small "Chaperon" label - likely will use what I did on the Morgan printing in Word on a color-filled background and applying with Maj-Paj paste covered with dull-coat.
 

Hey Oliver, amid ships simply means the middle of the ship. If you look through numerous build logs here you will probably notice that more people than not tend to plank either side as they go. I certainly do, but you can do one side at a time if you wish. I also tend to start at the top and at the keel at the same time and just fill in the gap so to speak. This way also gives you a good guide as to how much you will need to taper each plank.
 
Tapering simply means that you remove a small amount of wood from the plank at either end (sometimes this is not required), so that the plank is wider in the middle than it is on the ends. Never taper more than 50% of the plank width though. This is where steelers come in if needed.
 
cheers
 
Chris
 

Oliver, also look through heaps of build logs for planking progress pics, especially try to find vessels with the same hull shape as Santa Maria. The vessel doesn't have to be Santa Maria, but it will give you an idea of how to go about planking a hull of the type you have.
 
This model was the first wooden ship I ever built, and I found the planking process to be a lot easier once I had a thorough understanding of the general principles of planking. Don't take short cuts. Ship modelling is a slow process.
 
cheers
 
Chris
 

Looking at your pics it seems you have maybe gone wrong from the beginning. The planking should have begun from the top of the bulkheads amid ships then continue downward one plank at a time on either side to get a uniform planking over both sides of the vessel. Remember that you absolutely must taper each plank fore and aft and only along the bottom edge. As you progress you may find it is necessary to add steeler planks to fill any large gaps that may arise. This is not uncommon.
 
I don't know if you are gluing these planks or just nailing them on. If its the latter I would probably advise you to maybe rip them off and start again. Carefully read any planking tutorials you can get your hands on. Do not just simply nail the plank onto the bulkhead. It must be glued into place. The nails are simply driven in about halfway to hold it in place whilst the glue dries, then the nails are removed.
 
It is a good idea to soak the planks in water for a period of time before attaching them to the model. I usually leave thicker first planks soaking overnight in my plank soaker then roughly shape them to the contour of the hull using a hot soldering iron. At this point I apply a small amount of glue to each bulkhead where the plank will meet it and gently drive in small nails to hold it secure until the glue has set. Once sufficient bond has been established remove the nails and repeat the process until the hull is covered. Any small gaps can then be filled with an appropriate filler. Larger gaps will require steeler planks.
 
cheers
 
Chris